


you’re walking meadows in my mind, making waves across my time

by butiwaswildonce



Category: Practical Magic (1998), Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (Past Jughead/Fangs - mentioned), A healthy combination of practical magic movie and book canon, ATF Agent Betty Cooper, Alternate Universe - Practical Magic Fusion, Bisexual Jughead Jones, Eventual Smut, F/M, Jones Sibling Feels, See endnotes for further description of warnings, Skeptic Betty, Slow-ish burn, Special Agent Betty Cooper, Supernatural themes - modern witches, Warning: Domestic violence mention (not between Jughead/Betty), Witch Jughead, you dont need to be familiar with either to read this story though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-01-05 13:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21209315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butiwaswildonce/pseuds/butiwaswildonce
Summary: Hands shoved in his pockets, he wandered the street, mind racing. A red ring hung around the full moon, and his heart felt like ice in his chest. He stood, staring at it, feet planted on the path at the end of his street.“Jones,” a now familiar voice came from behind him, and he flinched, turning to face her.“Agent,” he responded. “Following me?”She just smirked in response. Her blonde hair was out of her ponytail, a blue pea coat hung over her shoulders. She looked… nice. Of course, she was beautiful, that was an objective truth. But she looked different than when dressed in her usual garb. Less like a threat. It caught him off guard.*Or, the practical magic au I had to write.





	1. Danger is great joy, dark is bright as fire

*

For more than two hundred years, the Jones’ had been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong in their town.

It had started, as stories usually do, with a woman misunderstood.

Two hundred years prior, the first witch in a long line of Jones’ was accused, rightfully, of being a witch. Her crime, however, had been loving the wrong man. A man with a wife, a man who had no intention of ever running away with her.

When the town had attempted to execute her, she’d fled into the night, leaving nothing but a note for her lover, with news of her whereabouts, and, of course. The growing child in her belly.

The weeks turned into months, and months dragged on in agony.

Maria Jones, in her lovesick state, cast a spell so she would never know the pain of love again.

But the magic, it went wrong, tainted with grief and bitterness. It transformed to a curse. That all who held Jones blood, would lead those who loved them to an untimely death, leaving their beloved grief-stricken, alone, to die of no more than a broken heart. 

And, so. When Jellybean and Jughead Jones, two hundred years later, buried their father, the second of their parents to die, Well. Jughead, he swore to never love anyone.

And Jellybean, she swore to outrun the curse, to chase the beginnings of love but to never stay until the end.

Inevitably, of course, both would break their childhood promises.

And that, dear reader, is where our story begins.

*

Jughead’s day begins uneventfully, the bell of his shop twinkling as he entered. Flipping the closed sign to open, he juggled his thermos of coffee and his laptop. The coffee, scalding hot the way he liked it, spilled from the top as he realised too late he had not screwed the lid properly. It dripped down and burned him, hot and painful.

“Fucking, shit,” he cursed, running to his counter and dropping his things, sucking on the spot where he’d been burned.

Harried, he sighed, slumping against the counter. Gathering his thoughts, he hunted along the cluttered shelves for the aloe, a rather mundane product stocked in comparison to his more… conspicuous stock. At last he clasped the jar of aloe, stashed behind a box of rare fern leaves that would, when mixed to the correct ratio of lavender, offer the brewer protection against chicken pox.

He treated his burn, feeling calmer with the pain relief.

The shop itself was rather in disarray. He liked this time of day. While the shop opened at nine, he didn’t often see a customer until well after noon. It gave him time to sit at his laptop and write, to organise his shelves.

The last few days, however, he’d been rather preoccupied with the nausea he knew to be a warning of bad things to come. He’d spent the past few mornings brooding and dreading, a sick twist in his stomach that told him something terrible was going to happen. He’d been too sick with worry to do much of anything.

That morning, however, something had changed. The feeling had changed, or maybe he had adapted to it, he didn’t know. He did, however, at last have the energy to clean, and so he set forth, tackling the back shelves first, dusting and re-labelling.

His mind calmed with it, as the hours passed by.

The door disrupted his dusting of shelves of dried butterfly weed, a head of vibrant pink hair visible from his perch on the step ladder.

“Hey, Jughead,” Toni greeted.

He stepped down, nodding in her direction. “You have any bookings today?”

She shook her head, taking out her tarot deck and shuffling the cards. Raising an eyebrow in question she gestured at the cards. “Not yet. You want?”

Usually, Jughead steered away from predictions for his future. They were, as his aunts would say, unreliable and they tempted fate. He remembered how they had scoffed when he had let Toni Topaz set up her tarot and tea reading out the back of his shop. Today, however, with the feeling he had battled the last few days, it settled in the forefront of his mind, and he wanted some kind of clarity. 

Considering, he turned back to his shelves, finding jars of red pepper beside the belladonna. Which, if confused, would be _disastrous_. Shuddering, he put the belladonna aside, making a note to put it somewhere safer. Jellybean had been in charge of stocktake the month before, and it seemed she had done it with her eyes closed. Or, as Jughead imagined, with her mind elsewhere — likely, focused on some man she believed herself to be in love with.

Finally, he responds to Toni, nodding in affirmation.

He writes a note to stick on the door — _Gone to lunch, back in thirty minutes_, then follows Toni to the back of the store, where the plush red velvet curtains decorate a round, crystal embossed table with two heavy set, lavender coloured armchairs. Toni settles in on one side, shuffling her deck, and with a small incantation, her kettle begins to boil. Tea leaves float from a jar into a cup all on their own, and Jughead watches, enamoured. 

His magic was far more based in … _feeling_, in his ability to use his senses. He can brew potions well enough, sure, but his primary talent seemed to be a gut feeling that told him who to trust, where to turn, and which path to take. It came in handy, but it certainly lacked flair. His aunts liked to call it ‘the knack’. 

Toni cleared her throat, laying the deck on the table, and asked him to choose his first card.

Distracted for a moment by the kettle floating toward the cup and pouring over the leaves, he turns back to her, and picks a card, holding it up for her.

The two had grown up together, as they were cousins by marriage, and therefore Jughead knew the exact moment that Toni decided to carefully school her expression so as not to convey anything. 

Which did not bode well.

“What? What is it?” Jughead prodded, impatient.

“Nothing, you know you can’t base a reading on one card. Choose again.” 

Again, he chooses a card. This time, Toni’s expression turned almost to steel, and she exhaled a heavy breath. 

“Choose again.” 

When Jughead finally draws his last card, Toni’s eyeing him with sincere concern embedded across her features. “Has anything happened lately?” she whispers. 

He shakes his head, but pauses. Well. “Nothing — I mean, Jellybean’s run off with some guy again. But that’s hardly unusual.”

Toni nods, finally showing him his cards. She points a manicured finger at a card that read _The Tower_. “This indicates a life-altering change, or a reveal of a hidden truth.” Her finger traces the card, and moves slowly to another, turning it over. _ Ten of swords._ “This could mean that you haven’t yet reached the worst of something, or that a potential calamity is near.” She sucks in a breath, pausing in her explanation to pick up the brewed tea.

“Let’s try the leaves.”

Gripping the arms of his chair, he nods, swallowing heavily. He breathed through his nose, and cleared his mind. Sipping his tea, he grimaces at the taste and gestures to the rest of the cards. “What do you think they mean?”

She folds her hands together. Turns over another of the cards he’d chosen. _Three of swords_. He knows that one — heartbreak. He scoffs. “Toni, we both know I haven’t dated since Fangs, and that was so fleeting I doubt it would have even been possible for heartbreak to ensue. Besides,” he spoke with derision, gesturing at himself, “I think I’d know if I was harbouring a ‘broken heart’.”

“Don’t be so literal, Jughead. There are multiple meanings of the card. It could be loneliness, or betrayal, or—“ she pauses, giving him a meaningful look, “or it could be about someone close to you.”

“Jelly,” he says, because of course.

Nodding, Toni turns her attention to another card. “Lastly, there’s the Ten of Wands. Which is an indication of struggle to come.”

They remained quiet for a long time, as Jughead sipped his tea. All at once, he was filled with regret, and the absolute last thing he wanted was for Toni to read his leaves and tell him yet another omen of suffering was surrounding him. He sighed heavily as he finished, resigned, and tried to read the leaves himself first. 

She tutted, taking the cup from him. “You know it never works on yourself.”

As she reads his leaves, he thinks. He’d last heard from Jelly three days prior, when she had called to advise him she was following her newest flavor of the month, _Chic_, to NYC. She’d been her usual exuberant self, as in love as ever, and it seemed too soon for the usual inevitable crash and burn that occurred in her relationships. His stomach tied itself in knots, and his fingers itched for his phone, wanting to call his sister and check in. 

“Hmm,” Toni made a noise, face twisting in frustration. “A cloud,” she muttered, looking up at him. “It looks like something’s coming your way, Jug. Something huge.”

*

The warning follows him for the better part of a month, ever looming. He begins calling Jelly daily, clearly annoying the shit out of her. Hearing her voice keeps him sane, keeps him going. When he passes the warning on to her, she laughs at it. 

“Jug, come on. I’m _fine_,” she insisted, every time.

She talks of her lover as if he hung the moon, about his handsome features, his charm. Jughead’s more attentive than usual, and hears the lie in her voice. The deception seeps through her tone, and Jughead can feel it. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.

*

Jellybean arrives home with bruises, old and new, covering her body.

And a body in her trunk.

At the very least, Jughead is grateful he no longer has to wait for the bottom to fall out from under him. 

*

“Is he…?” Jellybean shudders, staring at the frozen figure of her former lover, wrapped in a hotel room sheet and stiff as a board, curled inhumanly in her trunk. “_Dead?_” she whispers, eyes wide and hands shaking. 

Jughead checks for a pulse, and feels nothing. His blood runs cold, and his mind goes blank. Carefully, slowly, he nods. “What happened?”

Jelly looks at him, eyes brimming with tears. “I just.. I’ve been giving him some belladonna, you know, just to get some _rest_,” she pauses. “I— I must have given him too much, and he just. He wouldn’t wake up, Jug. I thought— I thought maybe you’d know what to do. What do I do? What do we do? _Fuck_,” she says, breath coming in shorter spurts, panic rising in her tone.

Recognising his baby sister is maybe five seconds from a full blown breakdown, he breaks through his own panic and tries to find an answer, to find some kind of way out of this. 

Chewing on a thumbnail, he assesses their surroundings. The neighborhood is quiet, all the lights off and all neighbors asleep and resting safely in their beds. The trees of his property hide the path to his backyard. The moonlight shines down, lighting the way, and he knows what they have to do.

“We have to bury him.”

***

Betty Cooper likes small towns. They have quaint shops, and the people were friendlier than in the cities, and often, when she’s not working a case, she can pretend she lives there. She soaks up the town, the people, and pretends she belongs somewhere where people know your name and recognise you as you pass them in the street. 

Betty decides, as soon as she arrives, that she does not like Riverdale. The moment she sets foot in the town, she feels a compelling need to run far away, as if something outside of her will is driving her. She can’t explain it, so, she pushes it down, forgetting about it.

Glancing again at the file she now knows from memory, she re-reads the name on the front. Jellybean Jones. Twenty two, college dropout, no known official employment. Last known address; Elm street, Riverdale. 

Lifting her binoculars, she watches intently for signs of life inside, noting the wiggle of the upstairs curtains. Then, nothing. Exasperated, she flung the binoculars to the passenger seat, scrubbed at her scalp, and loosened her ponytail. 

Her coffee has gone cold, and she’s not getting anywhere on this stakeout. With a sigh, she turns the engine on, and drives back to her motel.

She’d be back tomorrow. 

*

“Who does that car belong to?” Jellybean asks, slurping the milk from her cereal bowl, eyes squinting as she peers out the lace curtain at their kitchen window. The purpling around her wrists was fading, but the dark blue of the bruise on her cheek was stark against her pale skin. 

Jughead looks out over her shoulder, eyeing the black Sedan parked halfway down the block. “It was there yesterday, too. I don’t know, maybe a neighbor has family visiting,” Jughead says, unconvincingly. 

“Do you think someone’s watching us? Do you think someone _knows_?”

Air escapes Jughead’s nose in exasperation, and he takes Jelly’s empty bowl from her, rinsing it under the tap. “No. If anyone knew anything, they wouldn’t just be parked on the street,” he says, with more certainty than he feels. “It’s probably nothing.”

Drying his hands, he grabs his plaid coat from where it was hung over his chair, sliding it over his shoulders. “Anyway. I’ve got to get to work. Come by for lunch?”

Jelly looks out the window one more time, crossing her arms and frowning. “Sure, yeah,” she says, tone distracted.

With a sigh, Jughead leaves the house. As he walks to work, he passes the Sedan, noting the tinted windows. A blonde sits in the driver’s seat, and as she makes eye contact with him, his stomach drops. The chill of his magic runs up his spine, and he knows. 

Their being watched.

The blonde nods toward him, as if in confirmation, and he hurries past, fear rushing through him.

When he gets to the shop, he rushes to the old phone behind the desk, spelled to prevent eavesdroppers and therefore, he figured, safer than his own cell phone. Dialing the number for his Aunt Iris, the only one of his aunts who owned a cell phone, he took a deep breath. They’d know what to do.

(He hoped).

“Forsythe, dear boy. However are you?” Iris crooned, her voice smoky and wistful as ever.

“Aunt Iris, you and Wilma need to come home. Something’s happened.”

The aunts, of course, demanded an explanation. When he explained firstly about his bad feeling, and then the tarot reading, Wilma laughed voraciously. “Jughead, dear. You don’t need silly parlour tricks. If your intuition is telling you something, that is more than enough. There’s no need to sink so low.”

He rolls his eyes, rubbing his temple. “Yeah, well. I guess the dead body in my backyard is more than enough confirmation that things have well and truly imploded.”

Iris and Wilma go silent, before there is the distinct sound of Iris coughing uncomfortably.

“Dear. Did you say there’s a _body_ in your garden?”

They decide immediately to come home from their cruise. The small matter of them being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean seems not to phase either the aunts or Jughead. That night, in fact, they arrive on the roof of the Jones home, broomsticks carrying them and their luggage floating beside them.

Betty Cooper, parked two houses down, doesn’t believe her eyes. Instead, she decides the endless stakeout and surviving only on coffee was driving her to hallucination, and it’s time, perhaps, for a more proactive approach to this investigation. 

***

There’s an overwhelming scent of burning incense as she enters the little shop on the corner, Verbena & Wyrm. The tinkle of the bell over the door alerts the shop owner, and the man, Jughead Jones, as she knew him from his file, eyed her with suspicion. 

The moment he had made eye contact with her the day before, she had known that was the end to her inconspicuous presence in the town. 

“Can I help you?” he asks, tone dry. He comes out from behind the counter, approaching her. He’s tall, slim, with suspenders dangling from his jeans and a flannel shirt hugging his broad shoulders. She clears her throat, assessing her surroundings. 

She crouches down to look at the shelves, noting the odd names, the peculiar items in jars. 

“I’m Special Agent Cooper, ATF,” she introduces herself, turning back to him. 

His eyes widen, before his face goes blank. “And I suppose you have some identification?” he says, folding his arms.

She whips out her badge, practiced, and waits patiently as he reads it. There’s a quirk to his brow, before he schools his expression.

“Is there something I can do for you, agent?”

Walking around him, she takes a jar off a shelf, casually, and he winces when she tosses it between her hands before placing it back. “Agrimony leaves?” she asks, reading the label. 

“For jinx reversal,” he says, and looks embarrassed when she shoots an unimpressed look his way. Surely, he knew she wouldn’t fall for whatever scam he was running here. She’d read up on him, and his store. He was the kind to exploit the naivety of those who believed in the supernatural, who thought some herb could do more than the wonders of modern medicine.

“Tell me, Mr Jones. When was the last time you saw your sister, Jellybean?”

“That would be at breakfast this morning. Am... I being charged with something, or...?”

She shifts, discomforted. That question was one she was usually asked much later into questioning.

“That depends, is there something you would like to tell me, Mr Jones?”

He shakes his head, fingers drumming a rhythm on his arm. It distracts her, for a moment. “Nothing to tell. You, however, could tell me what it is the ATF would want with my sister?”

Either, he’s very good at lying, or he really knows nothing. It throws her. She was _sure_ that breaking the brother first would work. Men were always the easiest, over-confident as they usually are.

Sighing, she switches tactics. If he really doesn’t know anything, and if the Jones’ were just innocent bystanders, maybe they had information they didn’t even know was useful. 

“We’re looking for a man called Chic. He was last seen with your sister, and we traced her back here.”

She produces the worn photograph of him she carries around, and holds it up Jughead to see.

There’s a pause, but no change in Jughead’s expression. Interesting.

“What… do you want with Chic?

“So, you know him, then?” she infers, pressing. 

“No. I mean, I never met him. He was just… a fling, of my sister’s. One in a long line, it’s not like I meet or keep track of them all,” his voice is clipped, clearly agitated. Maybe she’s getting somewhere, after all.

She waits, waits for him to offer more unprompted, waits for the information that will lead her where she needs to look next.

He doesn’t disappoint. “I think— Jelly said something about them splitting up. Him… leaving New York for… Florida.”

“Well, that’s certainly interesting. Because he hasn’t used his cellphone, or credit cards, or spoken to any known associates in a week.”

Jughead swallows, and she’s got him. “I— I don’t know anything about that,” he says, quietly, looking away. “If that’s all, I need to…” he gestures toward the counter, and she decides to leave it, for now.

“Sure, Mr Jones. If you think of anything else, you can contact me here.” She passes him her card, before exiting the shop.

She doesn’t know what he knows, but she knows she’s looking in the right place. The thrill of being right rushes through her, and she dials the number for her supervising agent, back at the field office in New York. 

“V, we’ve got a lead.”

‘Well, well, Cooper. Do spill,” Agent Lodge urges, as if the women were discussing gossip over a bottle of Pinot, and not the potential discovery of the suspect they’d been following for years.

“I just spoke with the brother. He’s _lying, _but he says Chic went to Florida. Look into it, but if I’m right, you won’t find anything. I think I need to stay in Riverdale, keep following this lead.”

Her intuition was famously trusted among her team, and with that came the benefit of a wide berth where it came to her job. Her boss gave her the space to investigate, to follow trails however small.

She falls asleep that night, head resting on her laptop, screen open to her research on the Jones family, and the string of mysterious deaths that seemed to follow them, the list going back for nearly two hundred years.

She doesn’t know how they’re involved, but she knows she’s going to find out.

*


	2. all night out on the run from black magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betty's dogged as ever, and things are only becoming more complicated for Jughead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Firstly, I am so sorry this has taken so long. It's also a short one. This story is not going to be abandoned, but due to my work schedule and life in general, it'll be a slower one. I usually don't like posting chapters until i've written most of the next one, but fair warning I have an outline but I have not written the next chapter. 
> 
> That being said, I hope you enjoy this update, and please let me know your thoughts in the comments. Thank you to all who commented, read and kudos'ed the first chapter.

Betty saw the flashing of her mother’s name as her phone rang, and watched it ring until it went to voicemail. As it silenced, she waited, counted, five… six…seven seconds, and her phone pinged. Another new voicemail message. Another unheard message, adding to the other dozen. She swiped the message away, and turned her gaze back to the shop front she’d been watching.

Her notes on the Jones family were extensive, but so far nothing substantial enough had come up during her surveillance. All information she’d been able to gather had come from secondary sources, which, while useful, were at times… unreliable.

It didn’t take long for Betty to discover the rumor mill of Riverdale was busy and bustling with talk of the Jones’, and the townspeople of Riverdale were perfectly happy to divulge their own stories to her. The trouble, she found, was sifting through the bullshit for the kernel of truth.

“Iris Jones turned my husband against me,” the motel owner had insisted. Penny, a lanky middle-aged woman with a smoker’s cough had been all too ready to discuss her theory that Iris Jones had wanted revenge for their childhood feud, and cast a spell to turn Penny’s husband’s head toward men. 

Betty had politely refrained from informing the woman of the dual truths that some people were gay, and that magic wasn’t real. Instead, she politely excused herself, and decided she’d gathered as much information from the woman as possible. 

She’d been keeping an eye on all members of the Jones family. It used to weird her out, the surveillance work. Digging into people’s lives, finding out their biggest secrets. It had been a long time, however, since she’d felt the sense that she was overstepping. When she had watched Jellybean and Jughead in their garden, some secret conversation passing between them, the sister crying openly, she’d even felt a strange tug of remorse. As if she were trespassing on a private moment. Of course, she was. But stronger than that feeling was overwhelming curiosity. The questions consumed her. What did the girl have to be upset about? What did the girl know about Chic? _What were the Jones siblings hiding_? 

Betty would bet her badge that whatever Jellybean Jones was crying about, it had something to do with Chic, and she felt more determined than ever to discover the truth.

The Chic Smith case had been hers for eighteen months, and it was the longest she’d ever worked on just a single case. He had been, at first, a person of interest in the murder of his roommate, a small-time drug dealer, brought to local police attention but never pursued further. When ATF had become aware of the string of bombings that seemed to follow wherever he went, along with the deaths of powerful men suspected of the trafficking of drugs and firearms, she’d been assigned to his case along with her team, lead by her superior, Veronica Lodge. She’d been the only one to come to Riverdale, the only one who had been convinced following the Jones girl would lead them further. Her colleagues were all ready to believe he’d finally disappeared, that he’d become aware of the federal attention on him and he’d managed to slip out of their grasp.

Betty didn’t let go so easily. 

The shop door opened, and out flounced Jellybean Jones, strawberry blonde hair tossed over a shoulder. She carried something in a tote bag that she didn’t have when arriving. Betty made note, and turned her engine on, ready to follow as the girl got into her own car.

A knock on her passenger door window elicits a shocked jump, her attention drawn toward the sidewalk, where Jughead was standing, a mug in hand. Miffed, she rolls down her window. 

“Thought you might want some caffeine, since you’ve been working so hard.” He passed her the mug, and the scent of coffee filled her car. Of course, it’s not the first time she’s been made by him. And, it wasn’t that she was trying to be particularly discreet. However, the gesture pisses her off. 

Because of course, she’s been successfully distracted. And when her attention returns to where she’d last had eyes on Jellybean, the girl is nowhere to be seen. 

Great.

“Very original. Definitely not a trick played in every detective show, oh, ever.” 

He quirks his lip, shrugging. “Well, I mean. It worked, didn’t it?”

Huffing, exasperated, she hands the mug back to him. “And what’s in the coffee? Some herbs to make me fall asleep?” She rolls her eyes, continuing, “is the mug ‘cursed’? Oh, I know — it was stirred three times backwards, and if I drink it it’ll bring me years of bad luck.” She scoffs, tone bitter. It’s maybe excessive, her ire, but nothing pisses her off like someone wasting her time. 

Jughead’s frowning, something dark crossing over his features. She remembers herself, and clears her throat.

“No, uhh. It was just coffee, actually.” He clears his throat, and shifts awkwardly. “Be seeing you, agent.” 

As he crosses the street back to his shop, she watches him, deflated and anger simmering down. Feeling thrown, she tightens her ponytail and buckles her seatbelt, car still idling. “Fuck this,” she mutters, driving back to her motel room.

The case is driving her crazy. She hadn’t slept properly in weeks. Every time she heard a new story about the Jones’, or she followed them for naught, or her supervisor called to check in on any new leads, and there was nothing. Nothing but a hunch, and circumstantial evidence, and she was a good agent, dammit. But every time she followed something and came up with nothing she couldn’t shake the sense that she’d gotten something wrong, somehow.

There was always that little voice in the back of her head. The one that doubted every decision she made. The one that agreed with all her colleagues that she’d been promoted too early. That she only gets allowances to investigate free reign because her best friend was her supervisor. That, actually, she should turn around and drive right back to New York. 

And when she sits on the edge of her shitty motel bed and listens to a voicemail message from her mother for the first time in months, that voice in the back of her head sounds an awful lot like her mother’s. 

Tired of feeling maudlin, she shook herself out of it, and focused her attention instead toward the evidence board she’d mounted on her wall.

She recounted the time line as it had been established: two years prior, Chic Smith kills his roommate and dealer in New York, known only to authorities as Charles. He then ditches police attention by moving to Chicago, where he stays relatively unnoticed, until six months later when the most influential drug lord in the city winds up dead from a car bomb. Chic moves again, this time to Atlanta. A string of car bombing incidents occur, and he skips town again. Then, Phoenix. There, a meth lab is found with ten dead bodies inside, all shot. A week later, the suspected owner of the lab is found dead from another car bombing. Chic moves again. The next time he’s seen, it’s with a seemingly clueless blonde by the name of Jellybean Jones, in the quaint town of Riverdale.

They move to New York, and then… surveillance drops off. And no one sees or hears from him again.

Jellybean returns to Riverdale, with apparently no knowledge of Chic’s whereabouts.

If the Jones’ are to be believed, Chic was in Florida. But there’s no trace of him, anywhere. There’s no sign that he had even left New York.

It _was_ shady, and as crazy as she felt, she knew there was something here. 

She’d wanted more intel, something solid, before hauling Jellybean in. But maybe she’d just been procrastinating, hung up on trying to conduct the perfect case.

It wasn’t getting her anywhere. She needed to question the youngest Jones sibling. Something about it gave her pause, though. It was infuriating. She’d never felt this level of self-doubt during an investigation. 

***

Jellybean wasn’t sleeping. Jughead knew this, because the sounds of Fleetwood Mac spilled out from the living room, and he threw his covers off, trudging downstairs to check on her. 

Iris, Jelly, and Wilma were crowded in the kitchen, Wilma mixing something in a blender.

“Jughead,” Jelly exclaimed, something wild and untamed in her eyes. “It’s midnight margaritas! Join us!”

The last time he’d joined them for a margarita fueled night of mayhem, he’d wound up in the bed of his ex-boyfriend. Having sworn to never again sleep with Fangs Fogarty, or any other of his exes for that matter, he was rather motivated to decline the offer. 

“No, thanks, I’m fine,’ he refuses, casting a discerning look at his aunts. Surely they realised fueling Jelly with alcohol was unlikely to solve any of their problems. 

A potion bubbled on the stove, releasing the aroma of rosemary and pine into the air. A potion to protect them from harm, and hopefully drive away the agent that had been following them everywhere. This particular brew was one which caused confusion and doubt in those it was intended for. 

For whatever reason, it wasn’t working. At least, not enough. 

Jughead doubted the woman was attempting subtlety. She came into his shop once in a while, browsing the shelves with a look of disdain, asking him pointedly if he had remembered anything further about Chic. Every time Jelly would notice the woman on her trail, she’d panic, shaking like a leaf, and suggest turning herself in.

He knew, if they didn’t drive the prying eyes away, that his sister would soon crack. 

“Jug, look,” she flicked a finger in the direction of the blender, and it turned itself on, whirring loudly. She cackled, downing the remnants of her drink. 

“C’mon, Jelly, you should get some sleep.”

Wilma interjected, waving a hand dismissively. “Oh, Jughead, live a little would you?”

“Sorry. I guess it’s my fault for caring about us, maybe laying low, and wanting my sister to look after herself. How silly of me. Maybe we should just throw a party every night!”

“Oh, dear, are you having another of your little dramatic episodes?” Iris suggests, and Jughead feels his blood boil. 

He throws his hands in the air, giving up. “Fine. Do what you want.” He grabs his jacket, throws on his boots. “I’m gonna get some air,” he informs them, slamming the door behind him.

It had taunted him his whole life, the levity with which his aunts, and even, sometimes, his sister, would approach their situation. 

Jelly had scoffed at the notion that Chic had loved her enough to be impacted by the curse, and had insisted his death had been accidental. The aunts had shrugged at the suggestion, and told him to let sleeping dogs lie. That what was coming, would come, and he had no say in the course of fate.

But he didn’t, couldn’t, live his life that way. He believed, as much as he could, in free will, and he believed he could control his path. He _had_ to. 

Hands shoved in his pockets, he wandered the street, mind racing. A red ring hung around the full moon, and his heart felt like ice in his chest. He stood, staring at it, feet planted where he stood at the end of his street. 

“Jones.” A now familiar voice came from behind him, and he flinched, turning to face her.

“Agent,” he responded. “Following me?”

She just smirked in response. Her blonde hair was out of her ponytail, a blue pea coat hung over her shoulders. She looked… nice. Of course, she was beautiful, that was an objective truth. But she looked different than when dressed in her usual garb. Less like a threat. Less like the woman who had hurled controlled vitriol in his face earlier that day. It caught him off guard.

“Going somewhere?” he asks, eyeing her outfit pointedly.

Interestingly, she flushes under his gaze. Her fingers smooth invisible wrinkles from her coat, and she looks away. “I was just taking a walk,” she hedges, and he scoffs.

“Likely story.”

“Well. If there’s no other reason to be out tonight but for suspicious reasons, as you’re suggesting, what are _you_ doing?”

“You tell me. You must have some theory, considering your unwavering interest in my family.” His tone is lighter than he feels.

Something flits across her face, but it’s gone before he can discern her expression. She shoves her hands in her pockets, turning her gaze on him, head-on.

“I think you know more than you’re telling me, at the least. I don’t know if you’re trying to protect your sister, or if your sister is protecting Chic.”

“_Protecting_ Chic? From _what_?”

Her nostrils flare, and genuine anger seems to fall upon her. 

“Chic Smith is wanted as a person of interest in multiple bombings, cases of arson, and a string of homicides in multiple jurisdictions—“

“—Wait, _what_?”

There’s a pause, as Jughead wrapped his mind around the information, and as Agent Cooper realised suddenly that his surprise meant that he had very little knowledge of Chic, or his business dealings. Which, frustratingly, only brought her more questions.

“Mr Jones. What interest did you think the ATF had in Chic, or your family?”

“I… I guess, I hadn’t really, uh. Thought about it.”

It’s a lie, and he knows she’s caught him in it. There’s an awkward silence, and it drags between them. He notices the way she draws in a breath, the furrow of her brow as if deep in concentration. He feels drawn in by her, even in the way she’s interrogating him, and he can’t quite figure out why he hadn’t walked away from her yet. As scared as he was of her and the questions she asked, he couldn’t help but feel intrigued by her, as well as a sense that the more he talked to her, the more he could extrapolate what _she_ knew.

“You hadn’t… _thought about it. _Really.” She says it like a statement, rather than a question, and in any other situation Jughead would have had deep admiration for the skill of sarcasm evident in her tone. Instead, his gut twisted with nerves, but his curiosity was stronger.

“If Chic is really such a big deal, why is it only you here? And why are you even looking for him _here?”_

She sighs, heavily. Taking a step forward, she broaches his space, looking up at him but still managing to be intimidating. “We’ve been watching Chic for nearly two years. We’ve never lost track of him for this long. The last person who saw him, it seems, was your sister. My theory is that you both helped him escape, somehow.” 

He feels himself gaping at her, as she continues talking, “I’m not going to give up, Mr Jones. So you better get used to seeing me around.”

With that, she stalks away, the click of her heels on the sidewalk drifting further. 

As he walked home, he considered all the new information, and it churned his stomach. There were questions he had for Jellybean, that she still left unanswered. Like how she had met Chic. Why she’d run off with him. Why she hadn’t come home, as soon as he’d turned violent. (This one, he knew, was unfair. But it was still there. Nothing turned him toward fury faster than the image of the bruises along her arms, her ribs, where he’d been hurting her. And he just needed to have some answers. To have some explanation).

He woke once more that evening, only a few hours later, to a blood curdling scream. An unwavering sound of thrashing was coming from his sister’s room. Heart in his throat, he leapt from his bed and ran to her room. He froze in the entrance way, eyes wide and mouth agape, at the sight before him.

He could feel his aunts behind him, and he heard their shocked gasps. But his attention was fixed on his sister, upright and floating above her bed. Of course, that was not such an anomaly in their household. What was strange, in fact, was the contortion of her face, and the voice that came from her mouth, but was not _hers_.

It spoke in tongues, garbled and incomprehensible. Jelly’s eyes rolled to the back of her head as she convulsed. It seemed to last forever as the minutes stretched by, and he was frozen, completely powerless. 

Suddenly, without warning, it stopped as soon as it started. Jellybean froze, her eyes returning to normal and the noises coming from her stopping abruptly. She let out a short scream as she noticed herself floating, and with that, she dropped neatly back onto her bed. Her pillows bounced off the mattress, and his sister sat there, stunned, and shivering. 

He heard Wilma tutting from behind him, and turned to see her hands suspended in the air. Of course, she must have uttered some kind of counter-spell. But what kind of spell would cause this in the first place? Jughead had never heard anything like it.

“My dears, I think it’s time to consult the old family recipe book.” Wilma stated, voice solemn. Iris nodded, and clutched Jughead’s hand. It was brief, but it was sure. This was an issue that could only be solved by magic.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Jellybean/Chic is a thing, but it’s over before it begins and is only mentioned through Jughead’s perspective. He was the youngest canon creep I could use. Obviously, Jellybean is an adult in this. Mentions of domestic violence as is consistent with the Gillian/Jimmy storyline in PM. Any further concerns or if you think anything else needs tagging, please let me know.
> 
> Work title from strange magic by electric light orchestra, chapter title from witches song by marianne faithfull. 
> 
> Chapters should be out once or twice a week, or sooner depending on my work schedule. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are much, much appreciated. I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts. Find me on tumblr at ohbutiwaswildonce :)
> 
> Xx


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